Lab Essentials

About this episode

This session explores five strategies for designing impactful software training. It focuses on understanding learners’ backgrounds, clearly communicating the value of training, and incorporating interactive, hands-on experiences. It also emphasizes building early confidence, maintaining engagement in virtual environments, and supporting learners beyond the session with practical resources and follow-ups. Overall, the session highlights a learner-centered approach that improves engagement, retention, and real-world application.

Transcript of the video

Lee Berkman: Great. We already see our first participants joining. Hi, everyone. My name is Lee from CloudShare. We are going to give everyone a few minutes to get into the webinar. In the meantime, while we wait for others to join, it would be great if everyone could use the chat and let us know where you are dialing in from today. We are going to have a really engaging session, so we are happy that you are here early, and we encourage everyone to use the chat and the Q and A. Hey, Jamie. Jordan, where are you from. Where are you based today. I see Boise as well. We have a colleague in Boise who lives on a small farm with horses. You have probably seen him running around like a local cowboy, unless there is more than one. New Jersey. Hi there, Christy. Awesome. Atlanta as well. Great. Tampa, Florida. I am dialing in from Tel Aviv, Israel today, though my accent is probably confusing because I am originally from Cape Town. I probably should have left that up as a poll question. We will give a few more minutes for other participants to join, but I think we are in for something really valuable today. Jordan has prepared a very informative and helpful program, and your participation is going to be crucial if you want to get the most out of the session. Do not be shy. Please ask questions, give feedback, and use the Q and A section as well. If you have a question you want us to focus on at the end of the session, please go ahead and use the Q and A. We are also excited to learn a little more about everyone’s roles and what you do in your organizations. If you are independent, feel free to share your title or responsibilities in the chat as well so everyone can get to know you better. There will be links and opportunities to connect afterward, so the conversation does not have to stop when this webinar ends. I think we are getting ready to begin, and I appreciate everyone for joining early. Jordan, you are going to get a lot more spotlight in a moment, but thanks for kicking us off. Instructional designer. Brilliant, Laura. Jordan is going to be speaking directly to you. Customer training specialist on a team of one. That sounds like a power team, Jamie. I hear that so often, and it is incredible how many lean teams or solo contributors are driving training content within organizations. Oh wow, now people are really lighting up the chat. I am excited to see that. Training leader. Director of customer education. We have customer education represented here. Hi, Bob. We know Hi Bob. That is awesome. Happy to connect with everyone. Great. Independent consultants too. We are really eager to hear everyone’s opinions and input during the session. Another Iowa member. Senior instructional designer in an HR team for associates in your organization. That is really interesting. We are going to discuss engagement for both internal and external audiences. I am happy to kick things off now. We are all here today to listen to our guest speaker, Jordan Hopkins from Intellum, and I will let him introduce himself in a moment. My name is Lee Berkman from CloudShare, and we are happy to host you today. My role at the organization is in presales, so I work with organizations to understand business requirements and alignments. What we provide is virtual labs. We are not here to dive too deeply into our service today, but at the end of the day, it is all about enabling training and making sure you have impactful software training. That is why there is such strong alignment with Intellum, because they specialize in this as well. Jordan has been in this space for many years, and with that, rather than stepping on your toes, Jordan, I am going to let you introduce yourself and slide right into the presentation.

Jordan Hopkins: Welcome, everybody. Since we are talking about ourselves for a moment, I will jump in. I am Jordan. I know I have met a lot of you on LinkedIn. I live in Tampa, Florida, with my small family, and by day I work at Intellum as an Education Program Manager, which is really a fancy way of saying that I get to build learning experiences and resources that help enable our customers and employees on Intellum. In case you have not heard of Intellum, it is an enterprise LMS. People use it for customer education, partner education, and employee and HR learning. It is pretty flexible. It is great to see a lot of people here, including a couple of Intellum teammates and people I know from LinkedIn. I am looking forward to this. We also have a lot of experienced people in the industry on this call, so as we go through the session, please share your ideas and examples too. It would be great to hear from all of you. Lee, if you want, maybe go over the agenda real quick with everybody.

Lee Berkman: I would love that. We are here to discuss five strategies that Jordan has outlined as the most effective when it comes to engaging learners through training programs. Rather than read everything out, I will keep it brief because we are going to dive into each area. We will go over the strategies, we will have some engaging questions throughout, and again, we are going to need your feedback and participation, so please do not get too comfortable keeping your hands off the keyboard and mouse. We definitely want to see you engage throughout the session. At the end, we will have time for Q and A. There is a Q and A section for any focused questions you have about either your organization or your immediate requirements. I think as we go through these topics, you will be able to build out additional, perhaps more directed, questions for Jordan. Jordan, I think we can go straight into the program.

Jordan Hopkins: Yeah. I am curious. When you think about product training, a lot of us think about showing people where to click and what to do. But it is so much more than that. With today’s strategies, we want to focus on how to help with the learning itself. Let us dive into the first one. Adult learners come with a lot of background knowledge and prior experience, just like the people on this call. We have directors of customer education, consultants, independent contractors, and people working in different verticals. It would be very complicated to address everyone in exactly the same way because you all have very different backgrounds. A great way to start product training is by tapping into a variety of ways to check on learners’ background and prior experience. We have a few listed on the slide, and I am curious, so throw it in the chat. What is your favorite way to get an early pulse on participants in terms of their experience or background. You can pick one from the list or add your own. One of my favorites is what I call a pulse check, which is either an opening question or a mini quiz to get a sense of where their confidence is. I will show an example of that in a minute.

Lee Berkman: You will also see that a poll has popped up about how you like to kick things off, so feel free to use the poll in Zoom and add additional comments in the chat. A funny one I heard recently was starting by asking learners what topping they like on their pizza. It is a little off topic a lot of the time, but it definitely gets attention and engagement because some people are very strongly for or against pineapple on pizza. I am not in favor.

Jordan Hopkins: That is funny. Icebreakers are a great way to do this too. If you can make your icebreaker both fun and connected to what is about to happen in the learning experience, that is fantastic. If you can combine the fun with some sort of pre-assessment of their knowledge, hats off to you. Lee, what are people saying in the poll.

Lee Berkman: Open conversation and questions are leading. We have 58 percent of participants leaning toward that. The next response is polls, and after that digital whiteboarding. What is really interesting is that there are no responses for your method, your favorite method.

Jordan Hopkins: Okay. I think a lot of times people probably blend a couple of these. We definitely use icebreakers because we want to build good presence and connection with our learners. But for this first strategy we are really focused on understanding what they already know so we can target what they need. For example, this is an actual screenshot from a product training with Intellum. It is really for novices. It is from a tool we use called Mentimeter. I do not know if any of you use it in your presentations, but it is a great way to take slide decks and make them more engaging while getting live feedback during your trainings. We ask everybody to anonymously rate their confidence level on certain skills we are going to touch on during the training. As you can see, we had an average confidence level of 2.7 out of 5, with the middle skill, organizing content with topics, being the one they felt least confident about. So I knew right away that while we were going to cover all of these skills, I needed to spend more time on the middle one. Then, at the end of the training, we launch the same pulse check again and ask them to rate their confidence level. Ninety nine percent of the time, those responses shift much farther to the right because people feel more confident. We also emphasize that we are not looking for perfection. We are all trying to grow together and get better at these skills. So it is a great way for them to check their own confidence before and after. It is not really a quiz. It is more of a quick way to ask, how do you feel about this.

Lee Berkman: I am guessing, Jordan, that with the tools you are using, all of this is happening in real time. There is no need to collect responses and go analyze them afterward. It is a real time format, similar to what we are doing now.

Jordan Hopkins: Exactly. It is similar to a Zoom poll, except that Mentimeter updates in real time while people are responding, so the bars are moving immediately. It is cool because it gives you a sense of what everyone’s experience level looks like as it happens. Thanks, Stephanie. We love Mentimeter too. Should we keep going, Lee, and move on to strategy number two.

Lee Berkman: I think so. Let us go.

Jordan Hopkins: This one is one of my favorites. Adults want to know why something is valuable. They want to know whether they are going to get something useful out of this experience. Think about a time when you stepped into a training, whether physical or virtual, and as they showed you the agenda, you thought, what am I even getting myself into. We want to avoid that at all costs. Knowing your learner personas and what they need helps a lot here. Many copywriters talk about the concept of what is in it for me. If you ever see a good advertisement, it should get into value and explain why it matters right away. We can do that in training too. Great ways to do this include offering really clear context and explaining why this matters. I will show an example because it gives a little more context. In that same training, we first show them the image on the left and say, when you enter a new LMS or new software, it often feels like a big blank canvas. Then we say, today, what we are going to help you do is achieve a branded, good looking LMS homepage with clear topics. Then I switch to the image on the right and show them what they are going to be able to build within the sixty minute product training with me. Their response is usually something like, that is awesome, we are going to do that. So it not only makes the learning objectives intuitive, it also clearly shows the value and gives them something that feels useful and concrete right away.

Lee Berkman: We do not have a poll question here, but Noah, our webinar administrator, has shared a link with everyone. It is a document around the five powerful strategies for designing impactful software training. We would love for you to take notes throughout the session, add comments on what is important to you, and continue the engagement there. What we are really hoping is that the conversation continues after the webinar. If you post your completed version into the CloudShare community, we will actually send you links and credit so you can get some CloudShare swag delivered to your home. So please do make use of that throughout the session. We are hoping it helps you take additional information back into your own training programs and planning. While we do not have a poll question, we do have a different kind of engagement, which will hopefully help everyone get the most out of this. Kayla, we also love the what is in it for me approach.

Jordan Hopkins: Yeah, I love that. Pam, you also shared a great strategy. She mentioned doing a day in the life of someone and showing how the platform improves that experience. That is something we hear a lot from our clients. They love seeing use cases and real examples. We often start there before getting into the actual product training so they know where this is going and why it matters. Lee, do you have any other cool strategies for tapping into value early on and showing why the training is valuable.

Lee Berkman: It is not directly related to training, but in the sales process, when we explain how CloudShare can help improve learner engagement, we start at the end user experience and the final deliverable. Similar to the slide you just showed of the empty screen and the customized experience, that is Intellum in the flesh. That blank screen feels intimidating compared to the magic you can actually deliver to end users. We do the same thing in the sales process. We want prospects to see what we offer the learner and how we improve the hands on experience, and then we work backward. I think that is a wonderful way to handle things in training as well.

Jordan Hopkins: Yeah, exactly. Show them that future ideal state after the purchase or after the learning. One more comment here, for those of you who are instructional design or learning science enthusiasts, you may notice that I am really tapping into

John Keller’s ARCS V model for motivating learners. Laurie dropped the name in the chat. ARCS stands for attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction, with the V for volition. Right now we are really focusing on the relevance piece. These are all great ways to motivate learners of any age, whether K through 12, higher education, adult learning, or product training. We really need to talk to the part of the learner that is emotional and motivational, not just the rational part of the brain. Julie Dirksen talks about this beautifully in her work as well. So thanks for letting me nerd out with you all for a second there. All right. Strategy number three. If you have your worksheet open, go ahead and add some ideas for yourself, for your own next product training. Think about what you are going to train next, who you are designing for, and add some examples that would work specifically for you. Merrill’s first principles of instruction talk about making things task centered and helping learners see something and apply it immediately. Demonstration and application are really the key ideas. If you are in virtual training, this can be tough. How do you get people to do hands on practice live with you on something technical or complicated. There are some great ways to do that. One is using virtual labs. I know CloudShare specializes in that, so building a demo environment where they can practice is one option. If you have demo sites or free trials of your product available, that is another great option. I also love fun challenges. Once participants are in a demo site or environment where they can practice, you can create scavenger hunts, have them look for settings, or challenge them to create the coolest color and font combination. Getting them in there and playing with the product helps build that early confidence too, which we will talk more about in a moment.

Lee Berkman: You piqued my interest with the scavenger hunt example. Do you mind diving into that a little more. It sounds really cool.

Jordan Hopkins: Yeah, absolutely. I do not know every product out there, but I know that in an LMS like Intellum there are a lot of settings for user properties, content, and many other things. It can often be daunting for novices to see a huge list of settings. What we do is, as we practice a new skill, we embed a new thing to do with those settings. Rather than dumping all the settings on them at once, we might say, I want you to go update this specific color for your organization. For example, if you want to add a certain brand color for a fake academy, we model it briefly and then have them go find it and do it themselves. So it becomes a mini hunt for the right setting. It is both application and discovery at the same time. That way, you are not dumping a thousand settings on them all at once.

Lee Berkman: I like that a lot.

Jordan Hopkins: I am curious. Before we move on, any questions from the audience about application and demonstration, or any tips or tricks that you use. Please drop them in the chat or in the Q and A.

Lee Berkman: I would also love to know if anyone here today is already using any of these approaches to be more practical and hands on. You can see that this is clearly Jordan’s comfort zone and mine too, just based on how much we are trying to keep everyone engaged. We would love to hear whether you are using virtual labs, demo sites, engaging challenges, poll tools, or anything else that others could learn from. If you are using something that works, or if there is something you are not using and wish you were, tell us. Kayla is already sharing that they use scavenger hunts with new hires so they can learn tools. It is the first time I have heard of it used in that format, and I love it. I think even our own customer success and account manager teams could take that away as a tactic.

Jordan Hopkins: Yeah, and I bet some of you are using in product guidance tools to walk learners through mini missions or tasks to complete and help them reach time to value. There are a lot of tools out there for that, and it is a great way to get learners hands on with your product before or after live training. I also forgot to mention that coaching and feedback are key here. You can demonstrate something and then have participants apply it on their own screens, but how do you know they are doing it well or whether they are making common mistakes. If you can get someone to share their screen and you can walk them through an example, that is powerful. It is also helpful to identify ahead of time some common pain points or misconceptions you want to address. Sometimes I will even make a mistake on purpose and then go back and fix it because I know it is a common issue for novices. A great example is Connie Malamed. I took one of her classes on graphic design for instructional designers. She showed us how to turn a really poor infographic into one with good visual hierarchy and contrast. Then, for the application part, she gave us a short challenge with a brand new infographic to improve. We all had fifteen or twenty minutes to work on our version, and then at the end everyone shared their version live while Connie and the group gave feedback. It was so cool seeing fifteen different versions of the same challenge come alive on screen with live expert feedback. The more you can build in expert or peer feedback here, the better. That really helps firm up the learning.

Lee Berkman: I think there was supposed to be another poll question here about challenges, but Noah has instead shared a question in the chat.

Jordan Hopkins: Perfect. The question is, what is your biggest challenge with engaging participants during your training. We have already talked about a few tactics, and we will cover some more, but what are some of your biggest challenges with engaging participants during training. While you are typing, I will share one of mine. I came from a background where I taught people in person a lot. You can really see their reactions in person. You can tell whether they are tuned out or highly engaged. But in customer education, especially virtually, you often have screens off, and we cannot always dictate what people are doing on their side. We cannot fully control that. So for me, keeping that ongoing feedback loop going and making sure they are responding back to you is a real challenge when screens are off. Kristen just mentioned that too.

Lee Berkman: Yeah, keeping people engaged through chat and through software is such a challenge. It feels like a new world, even though we have been remote for years already. I am taking this call from home, and I assume you are too, Jordan. We all collaborate in these spaces now, and training is becoming more and more remote. Self paced learning is everywhere, but for instructor led learning, while it is still personable in the sense that people can hear and see you, it is really hard to know if people are truly engaged or distracted. So one of the things I find difficult is understanding what they are actually engaged in. The tools you mentioned earlier, especially hands on labs with activities that require results, are one of the clearest ways to ensure people stay engaged throughout the training. I love that approach, quite frankly. I can also see in the chat that web cameras are one of the hardest parts for people. It is just hard.

Jordan Hopkins: Yeah. Jamie brought up an interesting one too. A lot of participants are really busy in their workday. Sometimes they leave twenty minutes before the end because they have another meeting. That means we really have to consider our audience carefully. I remember one time we had a ninety minute product training and eventually realized it needed to be trimmed down to forty five or sixty minutes, and we did. Iterating and meeting your learners where they are is really important. A lot of people are introverted too, and they do not always want to be on camera. I try to be gracious and assume the best when people join a training, because we cannot control every participant. I focus on multiple points of engagement beyond just cameras. That includes chat responses, emoji reactions, digital whiteboards, unmuted responses, and all kinds of different ways people can engage. I have gotten a lot more comfortable with people choosing to keep their cameras off. I do not force it. That might be different in something like employee compliance training, but in customer education I do not think it is always necessary. I would love to hear more from all of you about how you balance screens on and screens off.

Lee Berkman: We also heard comments about multitasking from virtual participants, which is such a common challenge. Jamie, we totally understand that. We have introduced features in our own offering to allow multiple instructors to manage virtual classes together because that is feedback we have heard so often. It really is a general challenge in remote and virtual learning. Jordan, this might be a good moment to dive into some of the methods you use to solve these issues.
Jordan Hopkins: Yeah. For multitasking specifically, one of the biggest things you can do is make sure that when you design product training webinars or workshops, you build in time for application, for doing something, or for discussion every ten or fifteen minutes. Do not wait until the very end to have some kind of engagement because by then you risk people tuning out. If you have two or three key skills in a workshop, build in time a few times during the session to do something with those skills, talk about them, and connect around them. Adults need their brains to do something with information and make connections before getting more information. We want to avoid information dumps.

Lee Berkman: The next point in your structure for effective training is something that feels like a different concept to me, or at least a newer one, so I am really looking forward to hearing more and also getting feedback from the group.

Jordan Hopkins: Definitely. Strategy number four is about building confidence early, and this one is awesome. If you have been in the software industry for a while, you have probably heard people talk about time to value. In learning, we often talk about scaffolded learning. We do not want to frustrate our learners, but we also do not want to make training irrelevant or too easy. We want to build early confidence. One of my favorite examples comes from the original Super Mario game. If you remember level one, Mario starts on flat ground. You just hit a brick and a Goomba. There are no huge holes to fall into right away. The game teaches you as you go, and then it gets harder and harder as you progress. We do not want to throw our new product users straight into world nine before they have had a chance to build some early confidence. That is one reason in app guidance is so popular. So think about what quick win or milestone your participants can hit early in your training. How can you design your objectives and activities so they accomplish something before they leave and have that aha moment. Here is an example. In one of our product trainings, one of the key skills is organizing content and topics intentionally around audience needs. During the training, we provide some imagery and examples and help learners build out an entire topic live, such as an onboarding sequence for new hires. They go from a blank topic to a fully built sequence in about fifteen minutes or less with warm text, basic stock imagery, and a clear structure. It gives them the sense that they can actually do this quickly. And when we do the pulse check at the end, there is always a big confidence boost in handling topics on the Intellum platform. I would love to hear from you all. What do you do to help people feel successful and confident early on in your trainings.

Lee Berkman: It is such a great question. I know when I think about this type of exercise, it is something I sometimes skip, and the Mario example is perfect because you really do want people to feel that the learning is accessible from the beginning so they can build from there. Pam has already shared an example in the chat.

Jordan Hopkins: Yeah, I love that, Pam. I love that you are using social learning, where people are constructing ideas together and taking something back to the workplace that they can actually use. That fits perfectly with what we were trying to do with the worksheet today too, to help people think through ideas they can actually take away. The peer and group workflow side of that is really great.

Lee Berkman: If anyone else wants to share, maybe there is something you have not implemented before, but hearing some of Jordan’s examples is giving you ideas for how to engage your users more effectively. That really is the goal at the end of the day, more impactful software training.

Jordan Hopkins: Cool. We can come back to that if more comments come in. So now we are on our fifth and final open ended question. Get your keyboard warmed up. How do you help people transfer product skills after training. We often have them with us for an hour or so. We can sometimes see them doing it live. But what do you do to help them keep growing in those skills and apply them in their day to day jobs after the training is over. Laura already mentioned job aids. Absolutely.

Lee Berkman: Just so everyone who does not have the chat open can follow, Kristen shared that attendees often think everyone else in the call knows more than they do, especially at the beginning of a session. So what she does is a level set at the start of the call to make sure people feel qualified and have the skills to be successful. If I understood that correctly, Kristen, you are making sure everyone feels like they have a common basic foundation. Jordan, did you interpret it the same way.

Jordan Hopkins: Yes. I think, Kristen, if I understood you correctly, you are also helping boost people’s confidence by showing them that even if they are new to the product, they already have useful skills they can bring into the experience. Molly also mentioned just in time resources for when they are ready for the next step, which is great. We are hearing follow up Q and A sessions, looking at data, and all kinds of great post training tactics. Those are all really strong ideas. And that takes us to the final strategy, integration. In Merrill’s principles of instruction, integration is really about learners taking those skills and applying them back on the job. I think you all have already touched on most of the best examples. Reflections, breakout groups, takeaways, job aids, and follow up tools are all part of that. This handout was our attempt to give you a chance to capture ideas and take them with you after the workshop. Do not underestimate the power of a simple follow up email either. It can be as simple as, thanks for attending, and here is your next step. Then you can send them to a short micro video, a next step activity, or a job aid. If any of you have marketing experience, this is where a drip campaign or short email sequence after training can be very helpful. It keeps the learning going well beyond the original product training. If you are in employee learning, it might also look like manager follow ups, practice in groups, or a chance to rehearse conversations if you work in sales enablement. Anything that gives them the opportunity to work on the skills afterward is really helpful.

Lee Berkman: Jordan, one of the things we touched on was the idea of job aids, and Laura mentioned it as well. Could you maybe dive into that a bit more, because I am actually not very familiar with the concept as a takeaway tool. Laura, feel free to add to this too if you like.

Jordan Hopkins: Absolutely. Job aids are very broad, so while I am chatting, Laura and others, feel free to drop your favorite examples into the chat. Job aids can be anything from an infographic to a worksheet like the one we shared today. They can also be a list of procedures, a checklist, or something very simple that people can take with them. If you think about a factory environment that has a lot of safety protocols, a job aid might be a sign on the wall that says where certain tools go, or it could be a checklist that you carry around and work through. The idea is that your brain cannot remember everything, so a job aid gives that information a place to live outside your head. In learning science, we might talk about schema or a shelf to put things on. These aids help reduce the burden on memory and also help support automaticity over time. The more someone uses the checklist or tool, the more those steps become internalized. Job aids can also be things like tips and tricks sheets, process checklists, or short reference materials.

Lee Berkman: So if I understood correctly, it is basically a summary or support tool that people can bring back into their actual job environment, whether digital or physical, so they can apply what they learned.

Jordan Hopkins: Yes, absolutely. Think of it like a reference tool. If you are a pilot, you have manuals in the cockpit because you are not going to remember every single detail about every single fuse. So it gives you something to check because your brain is not going to hold all the information. Job aids are like that. For product training, that could mean a short follow up video, in app guidance for a feature set, a checklist, or some kind of quick reference that supports them after the training. It can take many forms.

Lee Berkman: Great. So it sounds like our worksheet today is a pretty good example of that.
Jordan Hopkins: Exactly. It is like a little party favor. Something you can take with you.

Lee Berkman: I think that is a good way to think about it. So I think this wraps up the fifth strategy, and at this point we would really love to hear more from the group. What are some of the challenges you have had, or things you have tried unsuccessfully. This is a great opportunity to take advantage of Jordan’s experience with Intellum and with building training courses. Jordan, first of all, the fact that you have been able to consolidate all of this into such a streamlined process and provide the strategy checklist for people to literally fill in and use is incredibly valuable. I think that is a good job aid in itself. Were there any places where you have tried to implement something, maybe around the what is in it for me approach or showing users what they are going to achieve, and it did not land the way you expected. How do you refine that.

Jordan Hopkins: Yeah, I can definitely give an example of a mistake I made. We were showcasing a new feature for gamification and skill tagging, and a lot of our clients wanted some of the broader context around that. So I offered an introduction to the whole idea of knowledge, skills, and abilities. To be honest, I made it a little too complicated, and one of the reviews from a customer was not very positive because of that. I realized I needed to get down to the value of the feature much faster. One thing we really need to watch out for in technical training is too much extraneous information. You want some context setting. You want to lead with value. But the additional information should often be embedded more subtly as callouts, links, expandable tips, or optional content. We want to consolidate the extra material and highlight what is most valuable so people get to what they need quickly. So yes, I would say one thing I have had to learn is to avoid unnecessary complexity or content that is not directly relevant.

Lee Berkman: That answers my question perfectly. It sounds like one of the main issues is simply adding too much, which makes the value less clear. That idea of streamlining things really makes sense, and it is definitely something I can relate to. I love all the knowledge and practical skill that is being brought into this call. As a reminder, we are hoping the conversation continues after this session. If you post your completed five strategies document in the CloudShare community, CloudShare will happily send you some goodies and give you access to our swag store so you can pick out something for your workstation, a gift, or even a cute baby onesie. You really cannot go wrong with a baby onesie.

Jordan Hopkins: I mean, who does not love socks or swag.

Lee Berkman: Exactly. Any final questions.

Jordan Hopkins: Great. Also, if anyone has any final questions, feel free to ask. I would especially love to know if there are any other tactics or hacks you all use that we did not mention, because we have so many experienced professionals on this call.

Jordan Hopkins: Oh, great. We do have one. How would you apply these strategies to asynchronous learning or training. Great question. It is actually very similar. Let us say you are designing an elearning course or a learning path. You still want to lead with value and purpose. You still want to answer the question what is in it for me. For example, I am currently working on a certification for Intellum, and one of the activities deals with creating clear sections on a homepage that are intentional for audience needs. We often take a content first approach instead of an audience first approach, so I open that lesson with a thoughtful quote about how we often build bridges without thinking about the people who are going to walk across them. Then I show examples of real live sites built with Intellum that have really clear sections. Then learners get a chance to apply the idea, reflect on their own, and type ideas for their homepage. They see a video walkthrough of how to update it, so the same elements are there. They are just embedded within the asynchronous instruction. I would also always encourage building in feedback opportunities. That can be built right into the page through prompts, or you can invite them into social learning spaces, communities, or mentor conversations where they can share ideas and get feedback beyond the instructor. So yes, these elements absolutely can be blended into asynchronous learning too. I hope that answered the question, but I am happy to elaborate more if needed.

Lee Berkman: Thank you, everyone, for your participation and for staying with us throughout the call. We look forward to continuing the conversation with you, and a huge shout out and thank you to Jordan for all your preparation, time, and willingness to share your skills and expertise. I think this was incredibly valuable.

Jordan Hopkins: I really appreciate it. This was a great time, and hopefully I will see some of you on LinkedIn so we can keep the conversation going beyond the call.
Lee Berkman: Enjoy the rest of your day, everyone. Good luck, and I wish you nothing but success.
Jordan Hopkins: All right. Bye, yall.